My attention was caught this week by the upcoming poetry event this Monday 4th as part of the Writers on Mondays series in Wellington. Whilst sipping a glass of wine from Te Mata Estate, you can listen to no less than five poet laureates doing their stuff – Michele Leggott, Jenny Bornholdt, Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Smither and Brian Turner. Plus there's the launch of poetry CDs by Bill and Jenny and the brilliant Kate Camp is master of ceremonies. What's not to like! It’s at the National Library Auditorium, corner of Aitken and Molesworth Streets, at 5.30pm.

And how serendipitous - just as I was writing this, an email popped through from Christine O’Brien at Auckland University Press with more poetic snippets: after the runaway success of their books Classic and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have now edited another collection of poetry entitled New New Zealand Poets in Performance, (pictured with gorgeous cover by Sara Hughes, $45). This will complete the New Zealand Poets in Performance trilogy. It collects the work of 28 young and mid-career poets working from the ‘80s to the early 2000s such as Anne Kennedy, James Brown, Emma Neale, Glenn Colquhoun, Jenny Bornholdt, Robert Sullivan, Olivia Macassey and Kapka Kassabova. There are more than two hours of poets reading their own work on the two accompanying CDs.

Editor Jack Ross will be appearing at Poetry Live in Auckland, incidentally, next Tuesday 5th August, 8pm at the Classic, 321 Queen St. Entry by koha.

Another interesting-looking upcoming anthology is Moonlight: New Zealand Poems About Death and Dying edited by the lovely Andrew Johnston (Godwit $36.99). Apparently it “taps into the extraordinarily powerful way New Zealand poets address the subject of death, dying and grief. There are 65 poems from poets as diverse as Janet Frame and Glen Colquhoun, James K Baxter and Michael Jackson, drawn together by one of this country's finest mid-career poets.” All royalties go to Hospice New Zealand, so it’s all for a good cause, too. It’s a mark of gratitude for the quality of care given to Andrew’s late father by hospice several years ago.

For a bit of a laugh and some glamour, the prize for the most outrageous event within halloo would have to go to the Womens’ Bookshop on Ponsonby Road, Auckland, who will, on Tuesday 12th August, be hosting the 'Biffy and Bimbo BBQ' at the bookshop. Two divine drag queens will be launching Cooking doesn’t have to be a drag ($59), an American cookbook that ‘fuses the art of the kitchen with the art of drag queens’. Well, I always wear false eyelashes and fishnets to cook in, don't you? Wine and nibbles 6pm, Buffy & Bimbo at 6.30pm. Entry by koha at the door - proceeds to Queen of the Whole Universe 5th Anniversary. That Carole isn't afraid of a good shindig in the name of er, literature.

Speaking of which, better get in quick for your tickets to Carole's Ladies Litera-tea this year - they sold out in record time last year and this year Fiona Kidman, Emily Perkins, Tessa Duder, Joanne Drayton, Serie Barford and Sue Orr will be rubbing shoulders with foodie queens Helen Leach from Dunedin with The Pavlova Story and Aucklander Alexa Johnston with Ladies, a Plate: Traditional Home Baking. Served with lamingtons, melting moments, neenish tarts and cup cakes! 28th September, $45 a ticket. Grab your mum, sister or girlfriends and do it now or regret it for quite some time.

Have fun out there! And take a sturdy umbrella.